Chapter XI: Moral Government (2)

(2.) _The so-called strength of a motive is the comparative prevalence which the will assigns to it by its own action._ It is impossible to erect any standard by which the intrinsic "strength" of motives can be determined previous to volition. "A cold intellection is not intrinsically commensurable with a deep emotion, nor a sentiment of taste with a feeling of obligation, nor a physical appetite with a sense of honor." Now by what standard can the comparative force of these influences be determined? There is no more commensurability between them than between "the brightness of day and the force of magnetic attractions." Or if we could possibly determine, by some rational _à priori_ method, that a feeling of obligation is intrinsically stronger than a physical appetite, or that the love of life is stronger _per se_ than a sense of duty, we can not affirm that the one or the other shall therefore uniformly and necessarily prevail. These influences derive all their prevalency, and consequently their comparative strength of motive, _from the will alone_. The will places its interest in the one or the other. It decides the mental position. "It settles the question of preferences between alternatives, dismisses the counter-motive from view, and closes the debate."[544]

The "strength" of a motive, in its relation to the will, can only be known by the test of _prevalency_. This is unwittingly conceded by the necessitarian. He says "the strongest motive prevails because that is the strongest which the will chooses." This really concedes the position assumed by Dr. Whedon, that "the strength of a motive is the comparative prevalence which the will, in its own action, assigns to it, or the nearness to which the will comes to acting on account of it." Men do not always choose that which is most _desirable_, nor that which is most _eligible_, nor that which appears most _obligatory_. But from whatever motive men may choose to act, however base and unworthy, the necessitarian affirms it was intrinsically the strongest motive _because_ it was chosen; which simply amounts to this--the strongest motive is always chosen because the motive chosen is always the strongest motive.

The attempts of the necessitarian to fix upon some standard by which to estimate the antecedent strength of motives have all signally failed. The most plausible is that of Edwards. He asserts that the volition is always as the greatest _apparent_ good. But by what standard is that good estimated, by which faculty is it recognized and pronounced _good_? by the reason, the conscience, the judgment, or the appetites? Can that be pronounced _good_ which is chosen in obedience to passion and lust? Does the man who inflicts a premeditated injury upon his neighbor choose the greatest apparent good? Does the murderer believe that in taking away the life of his fellow-man "the volition is as the greatest apparent good?" Certainly not. "Never," says Bushnell, "was there a case of wrong, a sinful choice, in which the agent believed he was choosing for the strongest, weightiest, or most valuable motives." The great mass of sinful men are conscious of choosing sinful indulgence against their "highest good."

(3.) _Motives are the conditions, but not the causes of volition._ "Of volition the cause, the sole cause, is will. Motives are collateral conditions ... for the volition to be; with which there is adequate power for the volition not to be.... The motive is only the _occasion_, and all its acts of excitement amount to no more than this, that they stand as _probable conditions_ opening the way toward which the will thereby acquires opportunity to act with full adequate power of not acting."[545] The relation between motive and volition is not a necessary but a contingent relation. The will is the controlling conscious self in the exercise of direct causative power in producing volition.

Some modern writers of the necessitarian school, McCosh for example, admit the existence of "self-activity" in the will. But what can be the meaning of "self-activity" if the will have not the power of either resisting or yielding to motives presented, and in the same unchanged circumstances of choosing a different alternative? To be moved absolutely by motives is not _self_-movement. A power to move in only one given direction is a mere nature-force; it can not be self-activity. The distinguished writer above named also admits that "_causation in the will is entirely different from causation in other actions_."[546] If he mean that motives act upon the will in a manner "entirely different" from that by which physical causes secure action or change in the material world, what right has he to call it _causation_ at all? And if he mean that volitional causation is "alternative," and not, like physical causation, "unipotent," then the controversy is at an end.

(4.) _We have no such experience of "uniformities of volition" as shall enable us to generalize a universal law of volitional causation._ The facts of uniformity which present themselves in the continuous life of some men who were absorbed in one great life-purpose, as also in the conduct of aggregate masses of men, are not denied. We affirm that the correct definition of a free will supposes that it may choose in a generally uniform manner. Much of the uniformity in the life of an individual may be accounted for by corporeal nature--disposition, standard purpose, and habit. "Upon a basis of corporeal, psychological, and mental nature are overlaid a primary stratum of dispositions blending the natural and the volitional, and a secondary formation of generic purposes wholly volitional, and formed by repetition into a tertiary of habits; and thus we have, in his mingled constitution of necessitation and freedom, an agent prepared for daily free responsible action."[547]

Now it may be readily granted that character forms a basis of reliable _probability_ as to how in given circumstances a man will act. We may be able to judge, with some degree of accuracy, how a man will work in his freedom; but we can never calculate with absolute certainty, because we have numberless examples of men acting strangely "out of character," and disappointing our most confident expectations.

"There is often the action, great or small, which reverses the record of a life or a protracted course of action. He who well watches his neighbor, however blind he may be to his own practical self-contradictions, is sure to find, even in the life most uniform in its great outline, plenty of minor inconsistencies. Or as Müller, in his 'Doctrine of Sin,' well says, that both our observation and our subject's temptation may occur just at the moment of one of his great volitional turning-points. From the apostasy of the first angels and the fall of man, through the whole course of human history, we have innumerable instances of revolutionary volitions, not only _out of the previous character_, but shaping a _new_ character. The one disastrous sin of Moses, the one great complicated crime of David, the apostasy of Solomon, the wisest of men, are all proofs how, not only in contrasted traits, but in revolutionary acts, a man may be

'The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind.'"[548]

Statistics are cited by Buckle, in his "History of Civilization in England," showing that crimes, suicides, marriages, etc., occur with remarkable uniformity, as the result of general conditions of human society; and he thence infers that all the actions of men are governed by a uniform law of causation. This uniformity may, however, be as easily accounted for on the doctrine of freedom as on the doctrine of necessity. In the calculations of contingencies, while results of compared large aggregates in the same conditions may approach equality, the _contingency of each individual case remains still a contingency_. The actuary of an insurance company can assert with accuracy the average duration of human life in different countries; but were he to attempt to predict the duration of any one individual life he had insured, he would certainly fail. The insured may falsify his predictions by a voluntary act of suicide. So though large aggregations of free volitions, surrounded by the same motives, may approach equality, the _freedom of the individual will remains_.[549]

And as Mansel very justly remarks, "it is precisely because individual actions are not reducible to any fixed law, or capable of representation by any numerical calculation, that the statistical averages acquire their value as substitutes. No one dreams of applying statistical averages to calculate the period of the earth's rotation by showing that four-and-twenty hours is the exact medium of time, comparing one month's or one year's revolution with another's. It is only when individual movements are irregular that it is necessary to aim at a proximate regularity by calculating in mass."[550]

3. _The Theological Argument._--The main points of the theological argument may be thus presented: Freedom in a created being is incompatible with the absolute sovereignty and prescience of God. To suppose a being capable of acting either of several ways is to suppose a being out of the control of God. And a free agent can not possess power to do otherwise than God foreknows he will do.

In regard to the first of these supposed incompatibilities, we need only remark that if the Deity, in order to the existence of an equitable moral government, and the consequent possibility of free responsible action by the creature, shall please to subject his omnipotence to conditional limitations, the necessitarian has no business to object.[551] We need feel no solicitude about the Divine sovereignty. God will take care of his own honor and defend his own high and holy prerogatives. Such self-limiting laws prescribed by Divine wisdom and love do not place man beyond Divine control. The necessitarian will not deny that such self-limitation is essential to the very existence of the kingdom of nature. God has established an order in nature, a uniformity of antecedence and sequence, with which Omnipotence shall not interfere. "Such a Divine law of non-usance of power is still more necessary in the kingdom of living agents, and most of all in the realm of responsible agents; it being observable that the more close the Divine self-restraint, and the larger the amount of powers in the agent left untouched, the more the creative system rises in dignity, and the higher God appears as a sovereign. Even in the system of living _necessitated_ agents, as necessitarians must admit, God forbids Himself to disturb the agent's uniform and perpetual acting according to strongest motive."

The second of these incompatibilities is really predicated upon our ignorance, and not upon our knowledge. We can not understand _how_ the Divine Intelligence foreknows all future events. To enable us to understand the exact manner in which an Infinite Intelligence contemplates succession in time, it would be necessary that we should be infinite also. The _fact_ that God foreknows all future events is all that is revealed to us; the _manner_ of it He has left in darkness, and we can throw no light upon it by our verbal speculations.

Of one thing we may rest assured, that as perception precedes volition in the finite intelligence, so knowledge must precede determination in the Divine Mind. God can not will or act in absolute darkness. Divine predestination must be conditioned on Divine foreknowledge.[552] His foreknowledge does not depend upon his will, or on the adjustment of motives to make us will thus and thus; but He foreknows every thing first conditionally, in the world of possibility, before He creates, or determines any thing to be, in the world of fact. Otherwise, all his purposes would be grounded in ignorance, not in wisdom, and his knowledge would consist in following after his will, to learn what it had blindly determined.[553]

Another important principle clearly and vigorously maintained by Dr. Whedon is "that the freeness of an act is not affected by the consideration of its being foreknown." First, because the Divine knowledge must always correspond to the reality. A free action must be known as _free_. "If there be in the free agent, ascertainable by psychology, or required by intuition, or supposably seen by the Divine eye, the power of putting forth the volition with full power of alteriety, then God knows that power."[554] Secondly, the occurrence of an event or act may be _certain_ to Divine foreknowledge, and yet perfectly _contingent_ in itself. Foreknowledge renders nothing _necessary_; _it is the consequence, not the cause of events_.

If there be a necessity at all in the case, "the necessity lies not upon the free act, but upon the foreknowledge. The foreknowledge must see to its own accuracy. Pure knowledge, temporal or eternal, must conform itself to the fact, not the fact to the knowledge."[555] The real difficulty is, not how an act can be a free act and yet be foreknown (for the act of knowledge can not change the object of knowledge), but how God can possibly know with certainty a future contingency which may or may not happen.

It is a clear and immediate revelation of consciousness that man has a free power of self-determination. No revelation can contradict this revelation. This fact of consciousness can not be invalidated by any conceptions of the logical understanding in regard to the omnipotence or prescience of God, for these by their very nature transcend all human comprehension.

III. _The method of moral government._--We have seen that government, in general, is control exercised with a view to the maintenance of order. In the material world, order is secured by the direct compulsion of omnipotent force. The things of nature are inertly passive under the hand of God. They can offer no resistance to the Divine control, and consequently, in the sphere of nature, there can be no real disorder. But in the realm of self-determining powers there is the possibility of collision, because there is the power to resist the will of God. And, as a matter of fact, we know there is opposition, lawlessness, and sin. In that sphere, where above all others the demand of the reason is for order, there is the presence of _disorder_--that is, there is disconformity to law and consequent suffering.

And now the question arises, By what _method_ is order to be maintained in the sphere of freedom? How are beings that have the power to determine for themselves what they will choose and do, to be brought to act in harmony with the eternal laws of righteousness and love?

There are inconsiderate souls who dream that this may be achieved by force. God, say they, is omnipotent; if He will the non-extension of evil, He is able to destroy it; if He desire the maintenance of moral order, He can compel it. Such reckless declaimers know not what they say.

Had it so pleased God, He could have made beings in human form without any sense of moral right and wrong, and without any power to commit sin; but they would not have been _rational_ beings, would not have been _free_ beings, would not have been _moral_ beings; neither could they, in any high and proper sense, be _happy_ beings, because they could experience no sense of rectitude, no approval of conscience, no delight in moral excellence, no blessedness in duty and sacrifice. God, indeed, has made many such creatures that can not sin. The bee, the ant, the swine, the ape--these can not sin; but they are mere things, not free powers; they have no sense of dignity and moral worth, no approving conscience, no joy of sacrifice, and no immortal hopes. Lived there ever a sane man who would change his lot with one of these, even though in being a man he has the fearful power to sin, and in sinning, the fearful susceptibility to suffer--yea, to suffer eternally? Is there any thing on earth whose value does not fade away when compared with the priceless value of being capable of duty, of virtue, of devotion, and of sacrifice? In the eyes of God, the humblest of moral beings is worth more than all the firmament of stars, and all the teeming myriads of brutal forms of sense that dwell upon the earth. Because God preferred to rule over free powers, and not mere things--free powers that could be governed by truth and reason and love; because He loves moral character, and cares for it more than all the things "that can be piled in the infinitude of space, even though they were diamonds," therefore He bestowed on man this high capacity of character--the capacity to know, to choose, to love, to enjoy, and in a conscious communion with God to be blessed forever.

But when God thus determines to create a rational and free being--to make "man in his own image"--He determines to make a being who in acting freely may act in opposition to the mind of God, and in violation of his holy law. In creating a free self-determined being who shall be the cause of his own action, God puts his own omnipotence under conditional limitations, and renders it morally impossible for Him, by mere force, to constrain the will of man. The notion of a free will, which is an efficient cause, being governed by force, is a contradiction. Omnipotence may, if it please, annihilate man, but it can not control man in the sphere of his freedom. "Powers governed by the absolute force or fiat of omnipotence would in that fact be uncreate and cease."[556]

The moral government of God must deal with man _as man_, must treat him as intelligent and free, and must govern him solely by moral influences. He must be controlled by the voice of reason and the sense of duty, by persuasion and sympathy, by hope and fear; in short, by motives addressed to the judgment, the conscience, and the heart. A self-determined being can be brought into harmony with the Divine order only by "the schooling of his consent." He can be perfected--that is, fully established in harmony with the character and will of God--by the discipline of the will. He must, therefore, be placed in such circumstances as invite consent, and at the same time permit resistance. He is to be trained, furnished, and perfected, and to this end he must be carried through just such experiences, changes, and trials as will best help the formation of a noble human character, and will best prepare man for the plenitude and blessedness of that life for which the present is a course of education and discipline.[557]

Furthermore, God's moral government of the world must deal with the _actual man_--that is, with man as he exists in society with certain hereditary taints that are not his fault, and under certain unfavorable conditions in which he has been placed without his consent. With reverence, we affirm that God Himself is under moral obligation to treat man equitably, to take account of the weakness which he inherits, the perverted education that has been given him, and the depraved associations that surround him, and graduate his responsibility on the scale of his available light. Finally, the moral government of God must deal with _the man that will be_--with that fixed character which may be formed by man in the exercise of his free power of self-determination, amid the circumstances of his earthly probation. This character must contain within itself the elements of a blessed or a wretched futurition, and thus a retribution be secured by fixed nature, and inflicted by an inflexible necessity.

That the moral government of God is a probationary economy, in which ample scope is afforded for the development of character, and in which we are in the act of being _proved_, is evident,

(1.) From the fact _that all our future interests are dependent upon our present conduct_. God has endowed us with some degree of foresight, and has thus made us provident beings. We have a native tendency to take account of and forecast the future. By the aid of reason we can, in some measure, foresee the tendencies of our actions; we can lay our plans for the future, and anticipate events which are yet remote. We can also bring to our aid the lessons of experience, and from this also we can learn that our present action will have a powerful influence upon our future condition. We know that the circumstances which surround us to-day have been in a large degree created or moulded by ourselves, and that many of our misadventures and our miseries may be easily traced back to particular acts of imprudence and folly on our own part as the cause. So that there is no truth we more certainly know than this, that our future happiness of the next moment, and of every succeeding stage of our living, is dependent upon our present conduct.

(2.) This is further evident from the fact _that the present scene is filled with moral tests and temptations_. There is in the present life an admixture of _good_ and _evil_. On the one hand there are numerous solicitations to evil; on the other there are motives and inducements to virtue, the plain intention of which is to prove us. In the words of Bishop Butler, "We have here free scope and opportunity for that good or evil conduct which God will reward or punish hereafter." This is necessary to moral government, because moral government can not exist without freedom of choice, and consequently the existence of those circumstances in which that freedom can be exercised. That we have freedom of choice we know; and our every-day experience of the temptations to wrong-doing, and of the difficulties in the way of a uniform adherence to virtue, teaches us that we are in a state of trial, where our principles are being continually put to the test.

(3.) That our present life is a probation for a future life is evident from the fact _that in the present life punishment is deferred, consequences are delayed, to give play to the exercise of moral motives_.

By "moral motives" we mean regard for what is right and just, _because it is right and just_, respect for the voice of conscience, and reverence for the will and requirements of God. If the consequences of our moral conduct were to follow immediately on the heels of the act, if reward or punishment were instantly to ensue, then moral motives could have no exercise. If there were no delay--no interval between sin and its punishment, moral government would cease, and a merely natural government would remain, such as prevails over irrational creatures. Man would then be influenced purely by motives of personal interest or safety or enjoyment, and his obedience would not be the result of moral motives, consequently neither virtuous nor vicious. God has, therefore, put the consequences of much of our conduct into the future, that we may have room for free deliberate choice, while just so much of consequence is permitted to appear as will clearly indicate that we are under moral government, and awaken the anticipation that _all_ our conduct will be brought into judgment.

(4.) That our present life is a probation for a future life is more fully proved by the fact _that as a moral economy the present life is incomplete_. The present is a sphere too contracted for the equitable administration of rewards and punishments, because some of the _last_ actions of men's lives, some of their _best_ actions or some of their _basest_ actions, would come under neither. The blood of the martyrs who died for the faith, or of the patriot who bled for his country, would cry alike in vain for vengeance or reward. The man who first took away his brother's life, and then his own, has evaded justice, and escaped punishment. The hand of violence has robbed the virtuous man of his present reward; and the suicide, by breaking in upon the sanctuary of his own life, has defied and defeated the government of God, if there be no future life.

In the present life retribution fails in uniformity. It is a proposition which the reason of every man must approve--that the government of God must be perfectly equitable, and that under it every man must receive his just due. But men do not receive their requital in this life, consequently we are bound to affirm that in the present life the Divine administration is _incomplete_. We can not conceal from ourselves the fact that events occur in the present life which we can not conceive as benevolently or righteously consummated. These events lift the tyrant to power, and trample down the patriot and the freeman. The orphan eats the bitter bread of misery, while the man who has robbed him of the paternal inheritance revels in luxury. The ungodly prosper in the world, "their eyes stand out with fatness, they have more than heart could wish," while the righteous suffer affliction, and are in need. And if there is no future life in which God will balance accounts with the universe, and render to every man according to his works, then moral government is incomplete, injustice has triumphed, wrong has prevailed. An imperfect retribution and an unequal providence demand a future life for their vindication--a future life both for the good and the bad, so that God may reckon with all of them--and teach most convincingly that the present life is a probation. The experiences, changes, conflicts, trials of a probationary economy, are all intended to prove men, to test their principles and make manifest their real character.

The government of God is a _moral discipline_ by which men are trained in the practice and confirmed in the habits of virtue, and thus brought, by the "schooling of their own consent," into harmony with the Divine order.

It is a question which may be properly entertained, whether a free self-determined being can be made perfect in moral character in any other manner than by the discipline of the will. There certainly can be no created moral desert. Responsible character must be the product of free choice. A man can no more become virtuous without the discipline of the will than he can become intelligent without the discipline of the understanding. For wherein consists the virtue of a self-determined being? Is it not in his free choice of what is right and good, his resistance to temptation, his voluntary submission to the Divine will? Is it not in his integrity, his patience, his fortitude, and his resignation? But how can these virtues exist, how can they be exercised, and how brought to maturity, except in the midst of difficulties and hinderances? Where can patience and resignation and fortitude and sympathy have a place, if there are no sufferings to be endured? How can firmness and diligence and courage be developed, if there are no difficulties and hinderances to the practice of virtue?

Therefore, in order that men may be trained and educated and perfected, they are placed amid such scenes, experiences, and trials as shall draw out the moral powers of the soul, shall strengthen and confirm the will in goodness, and establish them in the law of their being, so that their moral future is secure. "Life, thus ordered, is a magnificent scheme to bring out the value of law, and teach the necessity of right as the only conserving principle of order and happiness; teaching the more powerfully, if so it must, by disorder and sorrow." Suffering is a chastisement which is wholesome: it teaches the blessedness of purity and the sinfulness of sin; and it may develop into "a godly sorrow" which shall heal and purify the soul.

The moral government of God is an equitable administration, in which responsibility is graduated on the scale of available light and opportunity. "This is the condemnation that _light_ is come into the world." Light is the symbol of knowledge, because it _reveals_ the right and clearly manifests what duty is. Light is consequently the exact measure of responsibility. Our knowledge of what we ought to do, or ought not to do, determines the degree of our accountability. An absolute and involuntary ignorance would be the most perfect plea of innocence. The imputation of sin in such a case would be made void, but thereby the completeness of human nature be destroyed. That which would relegate man from the sphere of responsibility would also banish him from the sphere of rationality.

St. Paul distinctly recognizes an alleviation of responsibility and guilt in the "ignorance" of heathen life, and speaks of a Divine "overlooking of the times of that ignorance"--a non-imputation of sins committed in ignorance. But he does not by any means account the sinning heathen as free from _all_ guilt. He shows that they were not in utter ignorance, and that much of their ignorance was voluntary. He refers to the original consciousness of God, and to the fact that this consciousness is kept alive by the revelation of God in nature; and he shows that the disorder of their religious and moral life resulted from the voluntary suppression of this consciousness--"When they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened." He also appeals to the no less definite power of conscience in the heart of the heathen, "which shows the works required by the law to be written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness to this law, and their thoughts approving or condemning each other," and their civil laws "adjudging their crimes as worthy of death." So far as their ignorance was involuntary it was an alleviation of guilt, though not an excuse for all sin. Whatever light they had, be it little or much, it was the standard and measure of their accountability.

The Founder of Christianity distinctly recognized this principle of moral government. "If I had not come and spoken unto them, _they had not had sin_, but now they have no cloak for their sin"--clearly teaching that ignorance would be a negation of guilt, and knowledge an aggravation of guilt. Not that we are to suppose that the Jews, without the light which Christ supplied, were absolutely guiltless; their ignorance was a mitigation of their guilt. Christ lays it down as a universal principle that knowledge of the Divine law or ignorance of the Divine law by the person who violates it is the ground of a distinction in the different degrees of culpability. "That servant which _knew_ his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with _many_ stripes. But he that _knew not_, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with _few_ stripes."[558] This is the uniform rule of the Divine government among all nations.

Increase of light and knowledge necessarily enhances human responsibility. "To whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required." More is expected of the man than of the child. More is demanded at the hands of the man who has been blessed with the advantages of a Christian civilization than from the untutored savage. The man who has been favored with a liberal education is held to a more rigid account than the man who has been cradled in ignorance and schooled in vice. And when the kingdom of God comes nigh to men, human responsibility must be enlarged in commensuration with its blessings. There is a holier, richer trust, and consequently a deeper obligation. There is a greater light and a greater condemnation.

"Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works which have been done in thee had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for thee."[559]

This aspect of the Divine government, which Dr. Whedon has felicitously styled "the equation of probational advantages," relieves our sadness in view of the moral condition of the world. "The Judge of all the earth will do right" in the case of every human soul that has passed through this probationary scene. His omniscient eye can take in at one view all the influences and circumstances, favorable or unfavorable, which have surrounded each individual, and fix the precise amount of responsibility. He will "overlook" the "defect of doubt and taints of blood," the faults of education and sins of ignorance, and He will make a due allowance for the power of temptation, the trammels of evil associations, and an enfeebled and perverted nature. "He is full of compassion, and his tender mercies are over all his works." "He knows our frame, and He remembers that we are dust." We may safely conjecture that a negro hamlet in Central Africa, however inferior in its temporal moral aspects, may, in its prospect for an eternal destiny, be superior to many an American village. And in the dregs of our large cities there are numbers who are excluded as effectually from the knowledge of the truth as the heathen, and are scarcely developed to the level of responsibility. These may be the least in the kingdom of heaven, but by the law of moral equation they can not be excluded.[560] In every nation under heaven, he that has feared God and wrought righteousness, according to his knowledge and ability, will be "_accepted of God_."

The moral government of God secures an infallible and equitable retribution by binding _character_ and _consequence_ in indissoluble bonds, and evolving a reward or a punishment out of that permanent moral state of the soul which has been induced by the free self-determination of man.

"Character," says Novalis, "is a completely fashioned will (_vollkommen gebildeter Wille_). It is that ultimate stress and determination of the soul which results from the coherence and complexure of habits, and habit is the result of repeated acts of voluntary choice. From the persistence of habit a fixed disposition and cast of the inner man is evolved which constitutes his _moral individuality_."

Even in this formative process we can discern the workings of the law of retribution. One good deed handsels a second, and renders its performance more easy and pleasurable. The man who obeys his conscience feels that he can respect himself. He has a consciousness of growing power; a sense of dignity and moral worth. The moral law is for him "a law of liberty." On the other hand, one sinful deed involves a second, and drags it after it. One lie demands another to maintain its consistency. One act of injustice emboldens to the next. Self-respect is broken down by license, and the path is prepared and cleared for further iniquity. Thus, by the repetition of sinful deeds, restraints are overborne, depraved habits are engendered, vice acquires a mastery over the man, and he becomes a slave. There is a deep humiliation in this sense of degradation and unworthiness. The sinner despises himself because of his weakness, and blushes in secret places at the remembrance of his own debasement.

The principal happiness or misery of man consists in the settled state of his own heart, and not in the outward conditions of his daily life. All human plaudits are as naught compared with the approval of one's own conscience; and no penal inflictions can compare with the anguish of remorse. The inward peace of the righteous soul, the disquietude and misery of the sinful soul, are the blossom and the fruitage of the seed which has been sown, and the stem and branches which have been nurtured by the voluntary choices and acts of man. "He that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting." The connection between sin and punishment is no arbitrary or accidental connection. It is just as much a relation between cause and effect as the relation between sowing and reaping in the physical world. "To cause the mind to punish itself, to work a retribution out of ourselves, to secure it by fixed nature, to inflict it by inflexible necessity, to convert the capacity of sin into the instrument of suffering, is the prerogative of Divine rule."[561]

IV. _The end of moral government._--We have said that the end of government, in general, is the maintenance of order. The end of moral government is the maintenance of _moral order_ in the realm of free self-determined powers. The moral order must consist in conformity to the idea of the _absolute good_. The personality of God (the essential momenta of which are reason and freedom, holiness and love) is _per se_, in its totality, the absolute good. Infinite Personality is but another name for Absolute Perfection.

The highest good for a created dependent personality is "to resemble God" in all those attributes or perfections which constitute personality. It is to be fully established in harmony with God's moral character, unified with Him in will, glorified with Him in holiness, and perfected with Him in the blessedness of love. The highest perfection of personal being is moral order, and therefore human personality, conceived in its purity and perfection, is the end of the Divine government.[562]

This we have called "the ideal order of moral life," because it is not yet realized in the world. We must believe, however, that the final triumph of goodness is a part of the great world-plan. We must not only believe, but know, that the great design of creation, the reason for which the world exists at all, is that in it goodness may come to its final realization. And this conviction is grounded on the fact that the moral life of humanity has its source in the same Being who called the world into existence, and who is conducting this present dispensation to a glorious consummation, in which He shall "reconcile all things unto Himself,... whether they be things in earth or things in heaven," and "gather together in one all things in Christ," that "God may be all in all."

Christianity bases all the obligations and sanctions of morality on the great truths that God is near to man, that He sustains him every moment in life, that He is the Father of the human spirit, and that He governs man in order to perfect his nature and bring him into an everlasting fellowship with Himself. Christianity knows nothing of "a science of morals" which is not based upon the correlations between man and God, nor of a morality which forgets God and disregards the most sacred and fundamental of all duties, namely, the duties we owe to God. A morality based solely upon the relations in which we stand to our fellow-men is at best but secular and utilitarian. A morality which is grounded upon the relation of volition to the state of the sensibility, and regards "happiness as our being's end and aim," is egoistic and selfish. A morality which rests upon our relation to God, the absolute good, and which looks backward rather than forward for its motive, is unselfish and Christian.

INDEX.

A.

Absolute creation, 62.

Absolute, Infinite, and Perfect, relation of these terms, 41, 42.

Action at a distance denied by Newton, 214;
by Leibnitz, Faraday, Helmholtz, Thomson, Tait, Maxwell, 214.

Agassiz on species, 164;
on the preparation of the earth for man, 254.

Attraction of gravitation not a primary force, 210-220;
not an essential attribute of matter, 211-213.

Attribute or related essence, 48-52.

Augustine, St., on the days of creation, 150, 151;
his conception of Divine conservation, 176, 177.

B.

Beale, Dr., on distinction between cell-life and soul-life, 163;
on life, 192, 240.

Being or essence, as reality, efficiency, and personality, 42-48.

Bioplasm, or cell-life, 162, 163.

Brooke, Prof., on conservation of energy, 205.

Büchner, Dr., asserts the eternity of matter and force, 24.

C.

Calderwood, Prof., on consciousness of freedom, 382.

Carpenter, Dr., on will as the type of all force, 39, 237;
on distinction between molecular and somatic life, 163, 236;
on the forces of nature as modes of the Divine action, 240.

Catastrophes, common belief in, 100;
sustained by science, 101, 102.

Categories, universal, 41.

Causative principle, the, must be real, efficient, and personal, 44.

Chalmers's, Dr., incautious concession as to the eternity of matter,
86.

Character, the formation of perfect, noble--the highest end, 306,
can only be attained under conditions of freedom, 308,
and through the inspiration of a higher life, 309, 310.

Christian civilization the age of philanthropy, 285-290.

Cicero on a universal and immutable moral law, 379.

Civilization, each epoch of, has had a different theatre, 275;
stages of development in, 277-290.

Clarke, Dr. Samuel, on immediate agency of God in conservation, 178.

Cohn, Dr., on nature, 333.

Coleridge on nature, 325;
on the natural, 369.

Comte on irregular variability in nature, 195, 329.

Conditions of moral government, 371, 372.

Conscience, its nature and authority, 372-377;
its gradual development, 377.

Consciousness, religions, 304, 305, 345;
natural order of its development, 346-349.

Conservation, Biblical doctrine of, 174, 175;
conceptions of the mode of conservation, 176.

Conservation by secondary causes or agencies, 181, 182;
(1) hypothesis of natural law, 187-201;
(2) hypothesis of active force inherent in matter, 202-222;
(3) hypothesis of plastic nature, 222-235.

Conservation of energy not an absolute law, 205, 206;
limited by the law of dissipation of energy, 207;
not fairly stated by Dr. Tyndall in his discussion on prayer, 331,
332;
no evidence that it holds in the realm of vital dynamics
and psycho-dynamics, 332;
is not absolute in the realm of physics, 332.

Continuity of the ether, 217.

Correlation between God and man, 344.

Creation, Biblical account of, not designed to teach science, 136-138;
poetic, symbolical, and unchronological, 138-151.

Creation by law, 196.

Creation _ex nihilo_, how understood by the Christian Fathers, 92;
not discredited by the progress of science, 93.

Creation, its history, 126-171;
a gradual process, 152-155;
cumulative, 156-166;
consecutive, 166-171;
harmonious, 169, 170;
final purpose of creation, 130-133.

Creation, the conception of, 56;
the Biblical conception of, can not be determined
on philological grounds, 56-58;
how to be determined, 58-61;
distinction between absolute and architectonic, 61;
an origination _de novo_, 60, 61;
a voluntary act of God, 63-68;
not determined by any inherent necessity, 64;
not conditioned _ab extra_, 66.

Cudworth on a plastic nature, 222-225.

D.

Days of the creative week, 145-151.

Defects in nature, supposed, not removed by hypothesis
of unconscious intelligence, 232, 233;
this supposition based upon our ignorance of nature
as a whole, 233-235.

Descartes, his conception of God, 29.

Dissipation of mechanical energy, 120, 121, 207-209.

Dualism, Oriental, 23.

Duration not identical with time, 77;
nor with eternity, 77;
a quality of dependent existence, 81;
a fact of consciousness, 82.

E.

Earth, secular cooling of the, 105-108;
indications of surface transformations of the, 108, 109.

Earth, the, a school-house for man, 258.

End of moral government, 417-419.

Energy, conservation, transformation, and dissipation of, 118, 119;
defined, 194;
distinction between force and energy, 203;
laws of conservation and transformation limited by
the law of dissipation, 207-209;
cases of transformation, 237;
all the forms of energy are transformations of one
Omnipresent force, 237.

Eternity an attribute of God, 77, 83, 84.

Ether, hypothesis of the, 113;
a resisting medium, 114, 115;
absolute continuity of the, 217, 218.

Experience can not attain to a universal truth, 190.

Extension a quality of matter, 81;
not a predicate of space, 79;
a percept of sense, 81.

F.

Faraday on the possible and the impossible, 195;
on action at a distance, 214.

Final purpose of creation revealed in Scriptures, 130-133;
not discoverable by science, 234, 245.

Force defined, 203, 236;
the ultimate of all ultimates, according to Spencer, 25;
theory that matter is a phenomenon of force, 123;
the power of God, 123;
distinct from energy, 203;
not inherent in matter, 219, 236;
tendency of modern scientists to hypostatize, 227;
spirit-force the only force, 236, 237, 341;
a metaphysical idea, 340;
the expression of will, 341.

Forces, primary, of nature, 209;
a perpetual stream of power from the Infinite Spirit, 221, 222.

Foreknowledge of God and human freedom, 402-405.

Formation implies origination, 97.

Free self-determining power of the will, 380, 387;
arguments against--(1) Metaphysical or causational, 387, 392;
(2) Psychological, 392-402;
(3) Theological, 402-405;
conceded by Dr. Tyndall, 335.

Freedom of God, absolute, 63.

G.

Galton on the efficacy of prayer, 313.

Geographical conditions, their influence on the character
of nations, 258-264.

Geology points back to a beginning, 104-110.

Geological changes indicate a preparation for man, 254-257.

God, omnipotence of, and human freedom, 355-359.

God the author and giver of life, 240.

God, the existence of, the fundamental postulate of all
philosophy and all religion, 291, 292.

God, the fatherhood of, 359-365.

God the first principle and unconditioned cause of all existence, 27;
the content of our conception of, 27;
the idea of, a phenomenon of the universal intelligence
of our race, 28;
idea and concept of, 350;
harmony of the Biblical and philosophic conception of, 46, 47;
distinction between the nature and essence of, 62, 63;
not necessarily but freely just and good, 63;
immanence of, in nature, 174, 175, 240, 241.

Government of God, distinction between physical, natural,
and moral, 367, 368.

Gravitation--attraction not a universal and necessary attribute
of matter, 191, 211-213;
must have a cause, 214;
transmitted by the ether, 215;
instantaneous, 215;
cause of, not material, 216;
a derivative force, 221.

Grecian civilization the youth of humanity, 280-282.

Grove on causation, 39;
on force, 340.

H.

Hamilton, Sir William, confounds space and extension, 72;
also space and immensity, 73;
confuses the concepts time, duration, and eternity, 76;
on the inconceivability of an absolute commencement, 93.

Harmony between the philosophic conception of force and the
religious conception of God, 338-343.

Hebrew civilization the childhood of humanity, 278-280.

Hedge, Dr., on the immanence of God in nature, 186.

Hegel on Thought as the supreme reality, 25.

Helmholtz denies direct action at a distance, 214.

Herschel, Sir John, his conception of matter, 95, 125, 237;
on force, 39, 341;
on universal gravitation, 191;
on law, 198;
on conservation of energy, 205, 206.

History a revelation of Divine providence, 246;
the goal of, is the perfection of humanity, 248;
the especial field of Divine providence, 253.

Human race commenced its history in the Temperate Zone, 264-268;
distribution of the, not governed by the same law as the distribution
of plants and animals, 272;
distribution of, indicates a Providential guidance, 273.

Human freedom and Divine omnipotence, 355-359;
and Divine prescience, 402-405.

Humanity, perfection of, in what does it consist? 248, 249.

I.

Immanence of God in nature, 174, 175, 240, 241;
the doctrine of, not pantheistic, 241, 242.

Immanent attributes of God, 50;
an eternal and necessary in being, 52.

Immensity an attribute of God, 75, 81, 83, 84.

Inertia of matter, 220, 235.

Infinite series a contradiction _in adjecto_, 90.

Interception of force by matter, 220.

L.

Laplace on the stability of the solar system, 113.

Laurent on Providence, 247.

Law, creation by, 196;
meaning of the term, 197-200.

Laycock, Dr., on the law of design, 129;
on life, 192;
on science, 195.

Life, distinction between molecular and individual, 163;
molecular, the result of the immediate presence and agency of God,
239;
the cause, not the consequence of organization, 240.

Love the highest, determining principle of the Divine
efficiency, 130, 131.

M.

Mahan, Dr. A., his fatal concession to Hume, 88;
on an infinite series, 88;
rejects the _à priori_ argument for the being of God, 88-91.

Mansel on the conceivability of a commencement of existence, 94.

Martineau asserts the coeval and coeternal existence of something
objective to God, 67;
if true, would invalidate every proof of the existence of God, 67,
68;
on the separate spheres of religion and science, 296.

Matter a created entity, 95, 125.

Matter, eternity of, affirmed by Martineau, 67;
a fatal admission, which imperils the Theistic argument, 85-92.

Matter, theory that, is a phenomenon or a function
of force, 123, 124, 228, 236;
a real entity, 235.

Maxwell, Prof., on the nature of matter, 124;
regards matter as a created entity, 125, 126;
rejects the doctrine of action at a distance, 214;
on the origin of motion, 219.

McCosh concedes that space and time are not independent of God, 68;
on proportions of infinite space, 74;
on causation in the will, 399.

Mechanical theory of the origin of things, 299, 300.

Method of the Divine government, 405-407;
a probationary economy, 408-411;
a moral discipline, 411, 412;
an equitable administration, in which responsibility is graduated
on the scale of available light and opportunity, 412-416;
secures an infallible and equitable retribution
by connecting character and consequence, 416, 417.

Mill, J. S., on Teleology, 128;
on uniformity of nature, 189.

Mind, stages of development of, in the individual, 276, 277.

Mind the primal source of all being, 38;
the first cause of motion, 236;
the one and only source of power, 237.

Mivart on unconscious intelligence, 226.

Montesquieu, his definition of law, 198.

Moral attributes or perfections of God, 51;
an everlasting voluntary becoming, 52, 63.

Moral government, its grounds, 351-365;
its nature, 366-371;
its subjective conditions, 371, 404;
its end, 417-419.

Moral ideas of the reason identical in all men, 378-380.

Motion, origin of, 219.

Motives, moral, do not act causally on the will, 393-396;
the so-called _strength_ of motives discussed, 397-402.

Müller on Divine love as the highest determining principle
of the Divine efficiency, 131.

Murphy, J. J., on unconscious intelligence, 225;
on matter and force, 227-229;
his doctrine involves Pantheism, 229, 230.

N.

Natural and moral distinguished, 369-371.

Nature, meaning of the term, 193, 325;
course of, 326;
constitution of, 326, 329;
controlled and modified by man, 335, 336;
therefore also controlled by God, 337.

Nebular hypothesis implies a beginning, 110, 111.

Necessitarians, theory of, 394, 395.

Newman, John Henry, his conception of God, 31.

Newton, Sir Isaac, his conception of God, 29;
teaches that God constitutes space and duration, 68;
denies action at a distance, 214;
denies that gravity is inherent in and essential to matter, 211, 213.

Niebuhr on Divine providence, 246.

Nitzsch teaches that God is the cause of space and time, 69.

Norton, Prof., on Atomic Forces, 209;
his doctrine that atomic repulsion is the primary force, 220;
teaches that the Infinite Spirit is the primal source
of all force, 221, 222.

O.

Omnipotence of God and human freedom, 355-359.

Order of nature, facts concerning the, which are
supposed to conflict with the efficacy of prayer, 310.

Order of the universe had a beginning, 98.

Oriental civilization the infancy of humanity, 275.

Origin of things, mechanical theory of the, 299, 300;
vito-dynamical theory of, 299.

Origination and formation, 97.

Owen, Prof. R., on the preparation of the earth for man, 255, 256.

P.

Pantheism, the doctrine of unconscious intelligence ends in, 229, 230.

Perfect personality of God, 51.

Permanence of substance, force, and law, 15.

Permanence of the universe, no _à priori_ ground for
belief in the, 100, 188, 189.

Phenomena of the universe in ceaseless change, 14.

Physical and spiritual distinguished, 368.

Physical geography indicates a preparation of the earth for man, 257.

Plastic nature, theory of a, 183, 222-235.

Plato taught that a perfect mind is the primal source
of all existence, 38.

Porter, Dr., regards space as an entity, 69.

Prayer--have our prayers any influence with the Supreme Power? 292;
importance of this question, 292, 293;
natural to man, 302-304;
an essential element of life, 304-310;
necessary to the formation of noble character, 306-308;
attacks on the efficacy of, from the stand-point
of experience, 313-321;
from the theoretic stand-point, 321-338.

Prayer-gauge, the, not presented in terms of experience, and therefore
not capable of experimental application, 317, 318.

Problem, the central, specifically stated, 21, 22.

Procter on Divine supervision and control, 176.

Providence, statement of the Christian doctrine of, 245, 246;
the course of human history a revelation of, 246, 247;
defined, 252;
in the physical universe, 254;
nature and history the two great factors of Divine providence, 258.

R.

Reality of the external world, 14.

Relation between God and man--(1) contiguity, 351-353;
(2) immanency, 353-359;
(3) paternity and filiation, 359-365.

Religion, the sphere of, 294-297;
inadequate definition of, by Spencer, 298;
true conception of, 295.

Religious consciousness, the content of, 304, 305;
order of development of, 346-349.

Religious feeling, the facts of, as incontestible as the
facts of Physics, 296;
statement of the facts of, 302-310.

Repulsion the primary force, 220.

Richter on the providence of God in history, 247.

Roman civilization the manhood of the race, 282-285.

S.

Schleiermacher on the cause of space and time, 69.

Science and Religion, the apparent antagonism between them, 297, 298.

Science, modern, its metaphysical tendency, 103;
the sphere of science, 294-297.

Self, the fundamental reality of, 13.

Solar heat, dissipation of, 116, 117;
must be finally exhausted, 118.

Space--what is space? 69-78;
is absolute vacuity, 69, 70;
is an entity, 69;
is a relation, 71-75;
confusion of thought in regard to, 71;
confounded with extension, 72
--by Hamilton, 72, 73
--by McCosh, 73
--by Cousin, 74;
confounded with immensity, 74;
the relation of coexistence among extended bodies, 82.

Special providence and the efficacy of prayer, the present
issue between science and religion, 291.

Species, the essential element of, a spiritual entity, 164.